Jelly on a plate, jelly on a plate, wibble, wobble, wibble, wobble, jelly on a plate

mmmm feijoa's

That annual glut of fruit that kiwi's wait all year for and then spend ages trying to come up with good uses for them. Usually we use them as a substitute for apples or bananas in cakes, muffins, pies and so forth.

We usually get them for free from the abundant feijoa trees in backyards. If, by some slim chance to twist of foul luck, you don't have one, then a neighbour will usually have several producing enough fruit to keep a small town well supplied.

I have bags of them from my parents trees. I have been making smoothies, crumbles (crisps), chutney, porridge as well as eating them by the spoonful.

Right now I am experimenting with making fruit jelly, not the gelatine faux fruit flavoured muck you get in packets that contain nothing more than sugar, gelatine made by boiling down the leftovers from the butchery, iridescent artificial colour and synthetic flavouring reminiscent of cheap scented crayons (mmm doesn't that just make you want to run down the the supermarket and get some right now!!!)

I'm talking about extracting juice from fresh fruit, straining through muslin, adding sugar, and voila, home made feijoa jelly.

While I've made plenty of jam before, I have never made jelly, so I currently have a muslin bag full of feijoa pulp hanging from a cupboard door handle merrily dripping into a carefully position bowl. Hopefully the drips will drop where they are supposed to so I don't have a massive mess to clean up.

Then it will be time to bottle and seal the seasons bounty.

This years recipes are a plain feijoa jelly, soon to be joined by a vanilla feijoa jelly, flavoured with bay leaves and lemon zest.

Photos, and hopefully success stories, to follow.

Taste of Summer - Salted Almond and Hot Peach Salad

I wanted something.....


Something with fruit in it....

Something with nuts in it.....


Something with greens in it.....


and I found this yummy recipe in "take a vine-ripened tomato..."


but this is what I actually made

Salted Almond and Hot Peach Salad


2 Tbsp light olive oil
1/4- 1/2 cup whole almonds
ground rock salt
1 tin sliced peaches
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 pack salad greens
1-2 Tbsp wine vinegar

Heat oil in frypan, toss almonds in pan until toasted, remove with slotted spoon, leaving remaining oil in pan. Drain on paper towels and season liberally with salt.

Drain peaches well, sprinkle with coriander.

Add extra oil to pan if required, add garlic and cook untill golden, add peaches and toss gently until heated, add vinegar and gently combine.

Toss peaches and almonds through salad greens and serve while still hot.

The original recipe called for blanched almonds, fresh peaches, and buttercrunch lettuce, but there was NO way I was going to walk all the way to the supermarket to get 3 ingredients!


But on the other hand it might have given me some justification to have something sweet for dessert ;)


Loodle

Creepy Crawlies And Things That Go Bump In The Night

I used to have a live and let live attitude to critters great and small. I didn't bother them and, hopefully, they wouldn't bug me.

That was untill the day that the spider dropped

I was living in the darkest, dingiest smallest flat I have ever lived in. "nestled in the bush" wolud have been the nicest thing your could have said about it.

Being surround by the bush (and what counted as the yard being covered in wandering jew) there were endless multiple legged beasties roaming around in and out of the house.

The worst were the big black shiny spiders. They didn't just look nasty, they looked evil.

Now I know that they were not poisonous, but they looked like the things nightmares are made of.

One day I was reading in bed and this H U G E black shiny spider fell from the cieling onto my book and scuttled into the bed. I screamed, lept, collided with the wall (in my panic I failed to determine a safe place to land) screamed again and then abandoned the bed. After I had recovered my wits I pulled every cover off looking for the offending spider. I never found it. After that day I never trusted spiders again.

However I do think that creepy crawlies are beautiful.

Nothing beats the dew on a spiderweb first thing in the morning for beauty.

The alien life-form that is the weta

the crisp greens of a summer cicada

The sun reflecting off a lacewings wing

Loodle

diet

I love being on a diet.

No truly I do, I'm not just trying to get your attention with sarcasm. Diets are great!

I love the oppurtunity to get creative within the boundries of good health to enjoy what I eat, to try new foods and adapt old ones.

I'm not talking about fad diets, here today, forgotten tomorrow. I'm talking about good old fashioned what I SHOULD be eating, but because of, oh whatever it was that derailed me, I let my standards slip. A few hot chips here, a coke there, a pizza because I was too busy to cook properly, and before you know it I have a taste for fat and sugar again.

But give me a couple weeks eating properly and you get what happening to me now.

Hot chips, I love them (when I'm not behaving myself) today I had one of Liams. It tasted foul. I could taste the oil, no amount of tomato sauce could get rid of that fatty taste in my mouth. I went to the supermarket and had an all out binge session buying.....

vegetables

yes you saw right, vegetables

mushrooms, broccoli, onions, parsley, pumpkin, carrots, spinach and tomato, some char-grilled capsicum all lightly cooked in a white wine and faux cream (ultralight phildelphia cream cheese) sauce, served over pasta and seasoned with a generous grind of pepper.

mmmmmm

Photos? Don't be silly, I was too hungry to wait around taking snaps while my dinner was getting cold.

Loodle

Favourite Things - almost famous chili

There have been two happy coincidences recently.


The first is that my son went to see a live show of "the sound of music" in the little town of Waipu. I was unfortunately unable to go, but by all accounts he was spell bound. Afterwards he claimed it was boring, accept for the Nazi storm troopers. My mum, who went with him, said that he was spell bound. Since then he has been singing snippets of songs, including "favourite things", and I'm aloud to join in.


The second coincidence is that there is an ad campaign for an insurance agency that asks you to identify your favourite things. Well I couldn't think of any "things" that were favourite. Flavours on the other hand...mmmmmm


Well I love a bit of spice and a bit of the unexpected, and this chocolate chili fits the bill. Not the sweet kind you are expecting, no this is out and out savoury, with a hint of something extra. Serve it up to the troops and see if they can figure out the secret ingredient.


I took it to work a few weeks ago and wound up giving the recipe out to half the staff. It smells fantastic, and the chocolate is not as weird as it sounds. The spices are wonderfully fragrant. Give it a try! 


And yes, this chili is one of my sons favourite things, not to mention mine.

Oh it's dairy and gluten free too

2 TBSP olive oil
2 -3 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
1-2 onions, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped (optional)
25g raisins (more if desired)
30g chopped almonds
2 TBSP sesame seeds
2-3 TBSP maize cornflour
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1-2 tsp crushed chili (to taste)
400g tin crushed tomatoes (add another tin or some tomato paste for an extra tomato boost if preferred)
200g frozen spinach (optional)
handful of green beans (optional)
2 cups water
1 400g tin black beans, drained and rinsed (or dry beans, soaked overnight and cooked till tender)
1 tsp brown sugar(to taste)
35g dark dairy free chocolate (equal to one Whittaker's Sante bar) 
salt and pepper to taste

Saute garlic and onion until soft, add celery, raisins, almonds, sesame seeds, cornflour, spices and stirfry for 1-2 minutes until fragrant, adding more oil if too dry. 
Stir in tomatoes, water and vegetables and simmer for 5 mins, add black beans and simmer for 10 mins. (longer if you like the flavours to meld, but stir from time to time to prevent it catching on the bottom of the pan)
Add chocolate, sugar and seasonings and stir until combined.
Serve on a bed of rice or with cornbread.

This is the family friendly "mild" version, If you prefer more heat add chili sauce (eg Tabasco) and maybe a little extra chocolate as well. Warning, the heat does sneak up on you a little if you get carried away with the chili sauce.

The leftovers taste amazing reheated the next day.

Originally inspired by a Ceres recipe from a "mind food" magazine I found at a doctors surgery, with a few "minor" adaptations ;)



OK so I tweak it every time I make it, but that's what cooking is all about.


Loodle

Gulity Floretines

Today I decided to bake.

I had the whole day to myself, my son is going to after-school care where my brother will collect him, bring him home, play with him, spoil him and then tuck the bundle of energy into bed and hope (and pray) he goes to sleep.

I am going to a course tonight, so plenty of time during the day to do my own thing, bake, blog and generally relax.


But I feel guilty. As 3 o'clock inched closer I had no son to pick up, I feel like I am missing out on him. I feel like he is missing out on me.

So instead of experimenting with converting my pumpkin bread recipe to a gluten and dairy free version that he may or may not like and that may or may not end in disaster, I decided to make Florentines.

Now this may not have been the wisest of decisions. Last time I tried to make these misread the list of ingredients, used rice flakes instead of baby rice cereal, and the crisp little wafers spread so far that they spilt off the baking sheet and dripped onto the floor of the oven, where they burnt, smoked out the house and the sugary, syrupy cinders lead to an abjectly miserable clean up.

Today I followed the recipe exactly, and now that I have done a bit more gluten free baking I know the pitfalls a little better.

So without further ado, here is the recipe for my conscience soothing Florentines

100g plain orgran gluten free flour
100g sugar
2 teaspoons gluten free baking powder
25g baby rice cereal
25g almond meal
25g sliced almonds (I used slivered almonds)
3 teaspoons vanilla essence
3 teaspoons almond essence
80mls olive oil
4 tablespoons  liquid glucose
4 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon water
200g dark dairy free chocolate for coating (optional)

Line baking trays with baking paper and preheat oven to 200C

Heat essences, oil, glucose, honey, and water in a large pot. Bring to the boil.
Combine all dry ingredients and mix well
Once oil and honey mixture has come to the boil, wait till frothy then remove from the heat. Mix dry ingredients into saucepan, stirring well.
Florentines will spread a lot. Only about 3 will fit on a baking sheet at a time.  Place in teaspoonful mounds on the baking paper.
Reduce heat to 150C
Place baking sheets in the oven and cook for 15mins, flattening with a fork after 5 mins if required.
Cool on baking sheet
If desired lightly drizzle with melted chocolate
Yield - approx 3 dozen

(recipe originally from Lola's Wheat Free World, I have converted to New Zealand metric measurements)

Now to write my son a love note and leave them for his afternoon tea.

Loodle

Choc Chip Pumpkin Bread

I first tasted this loaf at a babyshower, a friend and "import" from the USA had made it, and I HAD to have the recipe. It was just so good.

I'm not usually a baker, I cook. And to me pumpkin is savoury. When I first heard of pumpkin pie I thought it was a main to be served with a dollop of tomato sauce. Now I know differently, and I have had this Choc Chip Pumpkin Bread to show me the way of enlightenment ;)

Its an easy recipe so you can get the kids to help and then teach them the virtue of patience as they wait for it to first cook then cool enough so they don't burn their tongues.

This recipe is as is from my friends kitchen, no modifications or changes, in fact I am copying it off the original recipe card she gave to me (Liam has added his artistic touch with a little brown crayon however)

***note - in this recipe 1 cup equals 200 mls***

Makes 2 loaves
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
2 cups mashed pumpkin
1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

In a large bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. In another bowl beattthe eggs, sugar, pumpkin and oil, Stir into dry ingrediants just until moistened. Fold in chocolate chips.

Pour into 2 greased loaf pans, Bake at 180 deg Celsius for 60-70 mins. Cool for 10 mins before removing from pans.

It is delicious warm, so make sure you enjoy a slice before the rest of the household, or you might miss out entirely.

If you are avoiding milk, use dairy free choc chips. One of these days I will attempt a gluten free version. Will keep you posted

Loodle